Trump Tariffs

I’m pulling my car purchases forward. Already replaced one not by choice anyway. But going to have both cars ‘25 models.

I usually lease cars every 3, this was the first time we’ve broken that cycle in several years and bought out both leases just because the cars were actually worth quite a bit more than the buyout price. Hell my Audi A4 Allroad trade value is *still* $5K more than my lease buyout according to KBB and that’s not a brand known for resale, but I just got such a great lease deal in ‘20. I’ve heard used prices are finally falling now so that might not last.

In a worse case tariff scenario, could be a good time to trade if still getting reasonably high trade value and getting ahead of possible tariffs. Already had one parts issue a couple of years ago during the shortages that had me go back to the dealer like 3 separate times. Don’t want to deal with that shit again. At least when you are turning over leases if there’s an issue it’s still under warranty!

 

Yes, the same people who convinced you Biden was "as sharp as ever", the same people who convinced you Trump was going to prison, the same people who convinced you Kamala was a viable candidate.. yeah those people have also convinced you that tariffs automatically equal inflation, but like everything else, they lie to you and they only do it because they realize you'll slurp up anything they feed you. HINT: Trump introduced tariffs on China in his first term and inflation was next to nothing. Try to keep up...

 

A lot of people who f'd around are about to find out.

 

I guess the MAGA socialists are unaware of the 100s of years of evidence that these policies make the drug problem worse & weaken the economy. da party of personal responsibility & economic freedom strikes again.

 

Basic Econ tells me tariffs = inflation. I don’t need some political hack to tell me anything.

The tariffs from the last “trade war” were all inflationary. The overall economy didn’t see huge inflation because the goods in question were a tiny fraction of trade, but if you slap some crazy “across the board” tariffs that is a very different scenario from just selecting certain products.

Keeping EV tariffs (as Biden has) also doesn’t change our perception much because we never had those products to begin with, but it is nevertheless potentially an economic inefficiency depriving U.S. consumers with lower cost choices (look to Ford CEO’s take on the Xiaomi SU7).

 

Trump had higher inflation per annum than Obama. 36% higher, in fact. 1.9% for Trump versus 1.4% for Obama. And this was with COVID in 2020, which kept demand low for oil and travel, keeping prices very low. Without COVID, Trump's inflation would've been even higher.

And this was with only targeted tariffs. A blanket tariff would certainly cause higher inflation.

 

It’s completely wild to me anyone thinks a 60% or 25% “across the board tariff” could be anything but massively inflationary. Economics can have complexity, but this almost gets to just basic math.

I almost hope they do it just so we can demonstrate how stupid it is. Kind of like when Texas pulled that stunt closing off their border with “enhanced inspections” by state police. That lasted about 2 days because it was putting everyone out of business.

 

I agree it’s not likely, govt had to pay farmers $30B last time around thanks to Trump and that was mostly just the China spat. What are we going to do, pay $300B this time? The scale of what is proposed is obviously not workable.

I suspect we’ll get more nonsense like “new nafta”. But I could see them pushing the losses well past $30B and into the 12 figures.

 

Wrt tariffs & inf, tariffs raise domestic prices too. If steel costs a dollar & we put a 25% tariff on foreign steel you think domestic firms keep selling it for a buck??

 

Elon was referring to two related axiomatic truths of life: 1, as anyone who has ever meritoriously succeeded at anything will tell you, sacrifice (hard work, doing without....) necessarily proceeds success; and 2, in order to make the change from socialist debt fueled path to ruin facade of economic stability, to productive (GDP > debt spending) sustaineable economy... there will, necessarily, be some pain involved.

 

....but protections for our domestic production ought to do what, to domestic production?

A. Chase more production over seas;

B. Cause foreign producers to increase their production of foreign goods to match decreasing demand for same, due to increase in the prices of their goods;

C. Prompt domestic production to increase to meet increase in demand due to decrease in supply (of foreign product) resulting from increase on price of foreign product--coupled with confidence in government having domestic production's
back?

I know... our resident Chicom puppets are so steeped in *America = bad, foreign = good* ideology, that their calculus is irrevocably flawed, such that the above represents a head scratching puzzle that will have them eliminating C off the bat, and waffling bt A and B....

Bc only "deplorables" want *good FOR "murica"*, while the learned, culturally seasoned, enlightened neo-prog, of course *knows* intuitively, that America is horrible, racist, misogynistic, evil, despicable, and owes the entire world apologies for merely existing, and reparations to the rest of the world, for us, doing, consuming, and having too much...

 

Nah, but we are aware of the plethora of evidence that shows the failure of nations that spend themselves into ruin--like how we *won* the cold war--all we really did was bait the USSR into spending itself into ruin, bc we were in a position to spend a thousand times more than they were, and yet they engaged us in a pi$$ing contest...

Guess who was sitting quietly by, taking meticulous notes?

If you answered the Chicoms, why give yourn own seff, a big fat cigar...

And if you can spot what we're doing to ourselves and why....

Pour yourn own seff a glass of your best whiskey to accompany your cigar.

Cheers!

 

Preemptively--to the chicom puppet (whom i have on ignore) who's fixin to chime in with his own little masterbatory drinking game....

Cheers!

Lol

 

WTF are you even talking about.

We didn’t win the Cold War due to economic protectionism, if anything the Soviets lost it because that was part of their own doomed economic system. A closed economy will never compete with an opened economic system. Has nothing to do with what one thinks is “Good for ‘Murica”. Waving a patriotic flag around economic protectionism isn’t going to magically make it more economically efficient. That's just an emotional ploy. Classic logical fallacy.

For the “neo-prog” environmentalist the 60% tariff would be the surefire best way to take care of the America’s “consuming too much” problem by making a lot of stuff simply unaffordable to Americans, although net-net I still would’t say that is good for the environment. The people will suffer economically AND there will be economic degradation (kleptocratic corrupt governments don’t have a good record on the environment, and we know Trump wants to pretty much let his coal and oil people wreak havoc).

 

Tell us how trade in the US. was before 1913... and tell us how the Marshall Plan is NOW an outdated trade deal that has to be replaced. And just for fun, tell us what you think about China's tariffs and trade deals with the U.S..

 

regardless, American labor costs more..

 

You think the Marshall plan is a “trade deal” and that it is still in place?

 

The importer of record pays the tariff and can choose to eat it or pass it through to the consumer.

Prediction: Certain products will be passed through and some tariffs will be eaten by the importer of record. China can (and will) manipulate its currency as a mechanism to balance the tariff impact.